Bad Government! Bad!

The “Get Government Off our Backs” people must be feeling pretty good about the oil spill in the Gulf (hm, “spill” isn’t quite the right word; perhaps “DELUGE” is more apt). I mean, there aren’t always test cases for what happens when a multinational corporation eludes basic U.S. rules like, you know, getting the appropriate permits and taking the reasonable precautions in case something goes wrong.

But here we have not one, not two, but possibly three huge companies that had at least a hand in the disaster (sorry, that’s pejorative; let’s say “event”). And the libertarians and the tea-partiers and the states’-righters and everyone else who thinks that the feds just muck things up must be really crowing now. After all, the world hasn’t ended. The companies in question aren’t going bankrupt. No one has died since the explosion, which in any case was just an accident; it could have happened to anybody.

They’re vindicated, simple as that. It must mean that we should relax all government control on industry–coal mines, hamburger meat, cribs, drugs, airplanes, we don’t need it. This latest, uh, incident shows that what’s really important is the bottom line. There’s a reason that big companies headquarter themselves in places like the Cayman Islands or Switzerland: They don’t want to pay a lot of taxes. And there’s a reason that they fight rules and regulations and environmental impact studies and oversight: They don’t want to cut into their profits. That’s the way we’ve set things up, isn’t it? You can’t blame them for taking advantage of the system, can you?

Let’s all get in line now with the anti-government people, because clearly their arguments have carried the day. If our government had been more rigorous, say, in keeping BP et al. from drilling off the Gulf, why, who knows how much gas might cost at the pump? (Even though oil drilled off the Gulf doesn’t necessarily get sold to us–you knew that, didn’t you?–still, the theory is what’s important here.)

Look, this is going to be tough for you so-called progressives out there–all you folks who say that there needs to be more regulation. But it’s time to admit that you were wrong and politicians like the governor of Louisiana were right. Today it may be a trifle inconvenient to a few thousand people who earn their living from the gulf, and sure, millions of fish and other aquatic denizens might die or never be born, and okay, the oil might seep into Florida swamps, but honestly, how many of you have ever swum in a swamp, anyway? A hundred years from now, no one will even remember what happened because a few big companies put their love of money over their respect for the environment–and, of course, the safety of their workers.

So go out and find an anti-government person today, and say, “You were right all along. If this is the worst thing that can happen because government gets off our backs, then I’m all for it.”

Well, that’s unless we’re talking about nuclear power plants. I have to think about that one.